Saturday, November 10, 2007

Lesson Learned

After a day's walk everything has twice its usual value.

-George Macauley Trevelyan


Many apologies for the delay in writing. As always excuses will fill the first paragraph and then we will get onto our stories.

We helped host the school volleyball finals for the region - hosting schools from Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Syria and Oman. Report cards were due and Tina was helping with our school's musical production. All took time and energy away from sitting here and typing away. Excuses over.

For some time now a few guys at school and myself had been wanting to do this trek we had heard about. Rumour had it that it was a 24 km, old donkey trail, 2100m rise and fall, 2 day, hike through barren, empty hills from the coast to the interior. We would split into 2 groups of 4 starting from either end, pass each other in the middle and drive the other groups truck back home on the final night. Our group had tons of experience with guys that have done the Pacific coast trail, written books about trekking through Egypt, etc. No problem we thought. So on we went.

Our group of 4 started at the ocean and after a 400m climb on the wrong trail, came back down to have the boys of the village lead us to the start of the proper trail. This "trail" was nothing more than sporadic paint markings on stones made for travellers coming from the opposite direction. With no landmarks we relied mainly on GPS and old notes about the trek. The heat rose sharply and we started going through our water much faster than we had anticipated. For many km's we followed the bells of a couple of donkeys we saw earlier on the path. Passing only a cave village, the odd goat and two young herders the entire first day we "had the place to ourselves". We realized quickly that we would not make our agreed upon meeting point to camp with the group coming the other direction so we trudged on past an old cemetery until night fell and laid down as the sun sank.

At dawn we rose to cover as much ground before the sun became too strong. We finally passed our friends we were to have met the night before. Neither group looked good and neither group passed on good news to the other. We left knowing we all needed to hurry to beat nightfall and ration our water as we were all down to our final 2 litres (started with 6.5L). At one point our group of 4 was lost, with precious little water, and completely exposed in scorching heat. We were greatly helped by finding an abandoned donkey trough and drinking from it, along with finding the occasional cave to huddle in for shade.

After 10 hours of hiking on the final day we trudged into our destination and savoured the water in the nearby village. The other group arrived at our starting point (their end point) hours later. They were in tough shape and the boys in the village below carried water up to them and helped them make it down the steep decline in darkness.

We collected our stories today and have been totally humbled by the desolate elements. Lesson learned. That mistake won't be lost on any of us.

Meanwhile, Tina had a "girls weekend" with one of the other halves of the treking guys. Her weekend was a world away; filled with lounging by the Grand Hyatt pool, sipping cocktails, watching 'Biographies of Supermodels' and relaxing. Sadly, where she had hoped to get a manicure and pedicure had no available appointments - should teach her to pre-plan. No debate here on the smartest gender.

We are very excited to be getting our first visitor from home. Tish arrives next week and we are going to take him to Dubai and out to camp in the sand dunes near our place. Should be great and for those of your that know Tish, it will be full of ridiculousness.

Thanks again for the many notes that you have passed on and the mail we've received.